Citrus
by UnluckyAmulet
Summary: AU. In which Sollux is going through technology withdrawals and Dave is trying to play hard to get. Also, what the hell are salted oranges? For the Homestuck PlotWaffle challenge. Rated T for language.


Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, Andrew Hussie, blah blah blah.

WELL. I never thought my first Homestuck fic would be a vague AU starring Sollux and Dave, of all people, but it is. This is owing to the PlotWaffles challenge I decided to partake in to try and kick myself out of my writing dryspell. XD Not too much of a pairing fic, but some SolluxFeferi (And slight SolFefEri) and minor DaveJade/Terezi and Dave/John.

Items: A deck of cards, a plate with writing, salted oranges

Place: A cruise ship

Enjoy!

* * *

It had been Feferi's idea.

Sollux frowns a little bit in the glaring heat of the sun, despite his signature red-and-blue sunglasses. The deck was packed with noisy chatter and the sounds of shrieking and giggling, mostly from girls. But really, he was not all that comfortable out here. It felt odd being somewhere without his precious laptop perched on his lap or the desk in front of him. As a matter of fact, he was going through something of a withdrawal without it. He could only imagine how many emails he had by now.

Sighing grumpily, he gazes out at the various people frolicking about by the pool that was built on the ship's deck, wanting to retreat indoors, but he doubted if his phone would have much reception here either. Plus, he'd promised Feferi that he'd come, and Sollux Captor was not about to break a promise.

Suddenly, a creaking noise alerts him to the fact that somebody had joined him. Glancing over, he was somewhat surprised to see none other than Dave Strider (a rather wet Dave Strider) settling into the chair opposite him, placing what looks like a coke on the table.

"Yo." Dave says casually, seemingly totally at ease despite the fact he was only wearing a pair of black swimming trunks and his shades.

"Uh, hey..." Sollux says, feeling more than a bit confused. "Do you want thomething?"

"Nah, man." Dave answers easily, taking a lazy pull on his drink. "You just look bored as fuck."

Sollux chuckles slightly, despite his irritable mood.

"Yeah, I gueth." he shrugs, glancing back at the pool, where he could distantly make out Feferi in a pink bikini, squealing as Eridan splashed her with water. He traces one of his canines with his tongue, feeling a spike of irritation. He leans back in his chair. "There'th no goddamn reception on thith boat."

"Seriously, dude? Hot babes in bikinis, non-stop sun and you're thinking about the internet?" Dave remarks, amused, but he didn't seem completely serious, so Sollux decides to let the comment slide, if only because he was feeling a little more keen for company than usual.

"I hate being in the thun. I burn." he grumbles. "And I can't thwim."

Dave raises an eyebrow, just enough so that Sollux can see him doing it, even with the unbiquitous shades.

"It kinda sounds like you're in the wrong place, dude." Dave remarks. "Sounds like you'd be happier in your room playing solitaire or some shit."

Sollux snorts.

"My friend thaid I needed to come out here to relax or whatever."

Dave looks mildly puzzled.

"Which friend?"

Sollux nods towards the direction of the pool, and Dave glances over to see Feferi, who is now perched atop the diving board, her arms spread out gracefully above her as she prepares to dive, cheers of encouragement from the pool floating up to meet her. Her hair fans out in the wind like a cape.

Dave smirks slightly as comprehension dawns on him.

"Oh, I get it. Couldn't say no to her, right?"

"Thut up." Sollux grumbles, but he doesn't deny it. He knows he's fucking transparent. He glances over at Dave. "Are you thure you don't have some ulterior motive for being over here?"

Dave chuckles slightly and takes another pull on his drink.

"I dunno, I need to get my chill on, y'know? All these babes are completely all over me." He says, as if this is a dreadfully stressful state of affairs. "Gotta take a little time out to regroup."

Sollux snorts.

"Whatever you thay, man."

"Hey, it works. Treat 'em mean and all that stuff. They'll be over here soon, begging me to get back in the water. Trust me."

Sollux merely shakes his head at Dave's ridiculous claims and reaches down into his back that lies at his feet. Rifling through it, he pulls out his phone to check on the reception again and if there is one yet, flipping it open expertly with a flick of his wrist. He grunts in irritation at it when it doesn't yield any promising results.

Dave examines the moody troll with a wry, slightly ironic air, before he pulls something out of his pocket and idly begins flipping through it, the sound of paper hitting each other slightly louder then the faint electronic chirps coming from Sollux's phone.

"What the fuck?" Sollux queries, one eyebrow raised as he glances over. "Did you have a deck of cardth thashed in your thorth thith whole time?"

"Nah, I went and got 'em after I left the pool." Dave snorted. "How would they even stay dry in my shorts?"

"How the fuck would I know?"

Dave snorts again and sets the deck out on the table, idly shuffling through them as though he's expecting to find something hidden in the stack. Sollux smirks.

"And you made fun of me for playing tholitaire earlier, Thtrider."

"Shut up. I just don't know whether I have the whole deck here or not. Can't play poker and shit without all the cards."

"I gueth not." Sollux replies, but he is still smirking slightly, which makes his fangs look more prominent than usual. Idly, he begins standing the cards up, although most of them succumb to gravity straight away. Eventually, though, he manages to get a small triangle of cards.

"How are you making them fuckin' stay up?" Dave grumbles, as he attempts it without much success.

"I gueth it could jutht be that I'm awethome." Sollux grins slightly.

Dave groans and shakes his head.

"That was pitiful."

Sollux doesn't dignify that with a response, instead he begins making another triangle of cards, mostly just to irritate Dave. It seems to work as the self-professed cool kid's lips tightened slightly as he gently pressed one card to another.

"How come you're on this trip, anyway?" Sollux suddenly asks, offhandedly, as he squints at his current project.

"I dunno. John and Jade were all excited about it so I figured I might as well keep an eye on them." Dave says, as if talking about two incorrigible children. "Plus Rose and her friends are here too. I dunno, who passes up a free cruise?"

Sollux makes a noncommittal sound of reply.

Dave grins.

"For serious, though. Your friend will be wondering where you are and forget all about that fishy dude."

"Yeah, well, Eridan is an athhole. I'm thure it won't take him long to pith off the wrong perthon," Sollux says in a somewhat irked voice, but he secretly hopes that Dave says is true, even if he won't be admitting THAT to him any time soon.

"No kidding." Dave remarks, as he glances over at the aforementioned boy to see Karkat is shouting at him for one reason or another. Terezi and Jade are standing nearby, the former giggling like a hyena while the latter simply shakes her head in exasperation. Sollux follows the direction Dave is looking (it's hard to tell with his shades, but being a fan of sunglasses too, Sollux can make an educated guess.) He was tempted to ask Strider exactly who he was hoping to come over to him, but he was enjoying the quiet now.

The two of them sit in a companionable silence for a while, carefully constructing their tower of cards together, which Sollux has to say himself, is pretty damn impressive looking, despite his preference for bifurcation. The underlying competitiveness of the activity gradually morphs into a spiky but lighthearted banter as the tower climbs higher and higher, even if it is missing at least two cards from each suite.

"Goddammit, I'm thirsty." Sollux suddenly complains, as Dave takes his final gulp of coke and Sollux's eyes follow the condensation that trickles down the outside of the glass.

"So why are you telling me?" Dave asks, flippantly.

Sollux shakes his head in irritation at the predictably unhelpful response and stretches over to grab one of the laminated menus on the nearest table. He scans the menu idly before something in particular catches his eye, although not in a good way.

"What the fuck are thalted orangeth?" Sollux demands, to nobody in particular.

Dave shrugs laconically, apparently his poker-face extending to weird-ass foods like salted oranges.

"Apparently they're popular." he says, and Sollux can't tell if he's straight-up fucking with him or if this boat is really just that weird.

"With who?" demands Sollux.

"Beats me."

Sollux just scans the menu again with this priceless look of incredulity that makes Dave want to laugh, only he doesn't because he has an image to maintain, here. Sollux wrinkles his nose, before pushing the menu towards Dave.

"I have no fucking idea." He says, simply. "It's tho weird I'm not even thirsty anymore. It thounds fucking diguthting."

Dave shrugs in a 'suit yourself' kind of way before examining the menu himself. He forgot to eat breakfast that day, since John basically dragged him up on deck, and now that he wasn't preoccupied with babes, he had finally noticed how hungry he was. It took him a while to come to a decision too; everything looked good. He briefly flirted with the idea of getting one of those ridiculously fancy, girly sundaes so he could enjoy it ironically, but in the end he rejected the idea, if only because he figured some people might think he actually liked it in earnest, which was nonsense. Striders do not like girly-ass ice-creams.

"Dude, are you going to actually order anything or just thtare at the pictureth?"

Dave is about to answer, when he hears feet slapping the deck, heading in the direction of the table and a familiar voice reaches his ears;

"Hey Dave, what's going on over here? What's that? It looks so cool!"

Although nobody can see it, Dave's eyes widen a fraction as he suddenly notices that the wooden flooring that he crossed earlier is still shielded from the heat of the sun and therefore is still a little wet, and John is about to go stepping on it, and-

"John, no!"

"Oh fuck!"

John, true to form, slips and crashes into the table, and the tower of cards wobbles precariously before fluttering to the ground. Both Dave and Sollux turn their sunglassed-gaze on John, who stands there with this goofy expression, like a dog who's just run in the house and tracked mud everywhere as though he has no idea what just happened. A broken plate lies nearby that used to have a delicious slice of half-eaten pie. There is faint lettering all around the plate, all of the plates on the ship have it, mostly cliche'd little phrases that don't really mean anything. Sollux and Dave, however, are less concerned with broken crockery and more with their demolished tower, although Dave briefly feels a slight disappointment at such a perfectly decent slice of pie wasted.

He is the first one to break the silence.

"John. JOHN. So not cool."

"Oh, come on, I didn't mean to, Dave! It was an accident!" John wheedled, overbite looking all the more prominent as he pouted, crumbs on his chin. "I slipped!"

"You are so picking up the cards. All the cards."

"Daaaave!"

As Sollux watches this, feeling a peculiar balance on pissy on account of a beautiful tower of cards being demolished by a total spazz, but also the strong urge to laugh at it all, he feels a tug on his elbow.

"Sollux!" squeals Feferi.

Up close, Sollux has to work very hard to stop his gaze from staying too long on her generous curves, accentuated by the hot-pink bikini she's in, although his eyes are still hidden behind his red-and-blue sunglasses anyway.

"Oh, hey Fef." Sollux says casually.

"Have you been sitting here in the shade all day?" she asks him, giggling a little bit. "Come on, the pool is wonderful on a hot day like this! And no funny chlorine smell, either!"

Sollux allows Feferi to tug him out of his seat, although as he rises, his eyes catch Dave's, and Dave gives him this little, almost encouraging smirk. Just a tiny tilt of the lips, really, but Sollux can somehow decode what he means by it perfectly.

_Told you so, man._

As Feferi pulls him away, Dave hears Sollux ask, with that funny little lisping voice of his;

"Thay Fef...have you ever tried thalted orangeth?"

* * *

Ffffff I can't write Dave. XD Also, Sollux's lisp made this VERY annoying to run through spellcheck. I couldn't leave it out, though, I love the way Sol talks.

Thanks for reading! ~


End file.
